Hello again
A busy half-term draws to a close and, as always, there is much to reflect on and much to look forward to.
I was extremely pleased last week to have had the opportunity to meet Year 7 parents who attended our Form Tutor Consultation Evening. I hope that you got the information you needed about your child’s first few weeks in secondary school; it can be a tense time but we are delighted with the way in which Year 7 pupils have settled in to their new routine; many of them are taking full advantage of the opportunities our school can provide. We aim to maintain excellent communications with parents and look forward to seeing you at future events. I would reiterate that we are always ready to listen and to offer appropriate advice and support where needed.
One of the many things that has impressed me about Aberdare Community School since I started has been the way in which the whole school community is committed to helping worthwhile causes. Since 2014 our staff and pupils have raised an amazing £21,280.54 for various charities. Last year alone the school raised over £9000. This fundraising is the product of hard work, commitment and an admirable desire to make a meaningful contribution to wider society. Local and national charities have benefitted enormously from the generous spirit of everyone involved with the school. I look forward to seeing this build and develop in the years to come starting this very week with our Harvest Festival aimed at raising contributions for local food banks.
We are about to embark upon an extremely important few weeks. Many Year 11 pupils will be sitting and/or re-sitting Maths, Numeracy and English Language GCSE exams immediately after half-term and many will have been accessing revision sessions this week. I wish them well in their efforts and sincerely hope that every pupil gets the grade that their effort warrants. Results will be published in January. At the same time many of our Year 13 students will have finalised their UCAS applications and will be eagerly awaiting notification of offers or interviews. I wish them well also.
Rehearsals are far advanced for the Shakespeare in Schools festival performance in the Coliseum on November 8th. Our pupils will be performing a version of Romeo and Juliet and I am hearing great things about the quality of the production. This is a tremendous opportunity for our pupils to demonstrate their performing skills and for the local community to see them in action on a professional stage.
On Tuesday and Wednesday of this week I had the pleasure of meeting our Year 7&8 prefect teams. We gathered together in the school library, enjoyed some breakfast and talked about what it means to be a prefect. I was incredibly impressed with their enthusiasm and eloquence; they all deserve to be commended for their willingness to volunteer and their eagerness to make a positive difference to our school community.
Amongst the educational visits undertaken in recent weeks has been the History department’s visit to the battlefields and cemeteries of Flanders. The pictures of the visit are moving indeed, seeing Aberdare pupils laying wreaths at the Menin Gate and carrying candles in Tyne Cot Cemetery. The annual exchange visit to our German twin town, Ravensburg, also took place. It was, I am told, yet another example of what great ambassadors our pupils are when representing the school abroad.
We have recently upgraded our parental communication systems allowing us to contact parents via email rather than the notoriously inefficient pupil post. However, we are currently unable to properly launch this as we have a relatively low percentage of up to date email addresses for parents. Please, if you have not already, done so, contact the school with your email address so that we can move forward with this. Hopefully the days of letters lurking forgotten at the bottom of a school bag will then become a thing of the past!
I would also like to issue a gentle reminder that energy drinks and high sugar fizzy drinks are still prohibited in school. There has been a recent increase in their appearance and we would like to return to the situation last term and early this term when such products were rarely seen in school. I appreciate your support with this.